LatinNews Daily - 06 December 2018

In brief: Argentina

* Argentina’s central bank (BCRA) has announced changes to the monetary policy strategy that it introduced back in September with the assistance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to counteract the domestic currency crisis and bring inflation under control. In a statement BCRA announced that as it has seen signs that inflationary pressures may be subsiding, with 12-month inflation forecasts falling by 4.4 percentage points in the last two months, the BCRA monetary policy committee (Copom) has decided to eliminate the benchmark interest rate floor of 60% it has imposed, reducing the rate to 59.10%. In addition, the bank said that it has also adjusted the currency band that it set three months ago within which it will not intervene in the domestic currency markets in support of the peso. The original currency band was set at Ar$34/US$1-Ar$44/US$1 but the BCRA statement says that it has now been set at Ar$37.12/US$1- Ar$48.03/US$1 until 31 December and that it will be adjusted on a daily basis during the first quarter of 2019.